Tires May Soon Be Made With Wood Instead of Oil in Bid for Sustainability

French tire maker Michelin has announced that they will be replacing their tire’s oil-based ingredients with wood chips instead.

The gesture is part of the company’s efforts to make one set of their tires last a lifetime.

Additionally, using locally-source wood chips as a renewable ingredient in the products is expected to help curb the tire industry’s dependency on oil. Wood ingredients are also expected to drastically lower production costs.

“The elastomers from wood chips will replace the oil content in tires. 80% of the materials in tires are coming from oil,” says Cyrille Roget, the company’s worldwide director of scientific and innovation communication, according to Motoring.

“We have a project working with wood chips. We will use the waste from the wood industry to create elastomers that come into tires,” he added. “We believe it is a good solution for the future.”

The company is currently working with self-sustaining wood plantations in Brazil as a means of developing the process.